He rightly points to ever growing piles of hoarded wealth sitting in the accounts of the 0.1% while the vast majority of the middle and lower income swathes in the developed world scramble to deal with falling real incomes, gutted pensions and a globalised workforce.

The amazing growth of products and services for the uber rich simply rubs this in the faces of the masses.

How might this all end?

When it happened in the latter parts of the 1800s and early 1900s it ended with revolutions etc. Maybe not this time.

Here's Lloyd:

Flaying the rich in one form or another is becoming a habit everywhere where freedom reigns in the world and even — more carefully and more dangerously — where it doesn’t, as in Russia and China, where the very rich often have the backing of the state, or sometimes, are the state. It’s happening because the financial crash is making many people poorer, and most people poorer relative to the rich, who still contrive to get richer and richer.

The stagnation in middle- and working-class incomes in many parts of the Western world is often turning into real decreases in spending power. Insofar as that goes on — and a fragile improvement in Europe and North America may take hold, and once again raise all boats, or it may not — then privileges, treats and shows of wealth become more and more galling, even to moderates not previously given to envy or militancy.

China may be about to fight back on behalf of the developing country currencies with its own devaluation.

That doesn't help New Zealand or Australia, of course, who refuse to devalue their currencies in any race to the bottom.

It's Japan's success this year in finally weakening its supercharged yen, by fresh rounds of money-printing from its central bank, which may prove pivotal by disturbing the delicate balance in Asia.

Some economists warn the yen's more than 10 percent retreat since January is already forcing China's hand on its own controversial policy of yuan capping in a way that could cause consternation in Washington in an election year.

Far from seeing a sharply rising yuan emerge from China's policy of greater exchange rate flexibility - core U.S. and multilateral demands - the yuan has actually weakened this year as China's economy and inflation rates slow, its trade account worsens and fears of a "hard landing" there persist.

Even though the tightly-controlled yuan has gained more than 10 percent against world currencies over the past five years, it's one of the few major emerging market currencies to remain lower against the U.S. dollar so far in 2012.

Many Asian nations have been trying to improve ties as growth has slowed in markets such as the US and Europe. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said the three countries agreed to the terms of the investment pact at a meeting in Beijing earlier this week.

KiwiRail's purchase of Chinese-made trains would not have happened under this regime, if it was in place here.

“FREE trade, yes. Disloyal competition, no. Europe that opens all its public-procurement markets when others do not open them at all—it’s no.” Thus Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, in a markedly protectionist campaign speech earlier this month. Less than a fortnight later, the European Commission has snapped its heels. It has issued a proposal to let the EU close its public-procurement markets to firms from countries that exclude European competitors from their public contracts.

Like Mr Sarkozy, Eurocrats insist that this is not protectionism. It is, rather, creating a lever to prise open closed markets. The proposal has been a long time coming; if the commission had to postpone every initiative because of an election, it could never do anything. Yet many still see this as a campaign gift to Mr Sarkozy.

THE high dollar is ravaging the competitiveness of Australian business. Global consulting firm KPMG reports that Australia has become the second most expensive place to do business among the major economies, behind Japan.

In its survey of global business costs, Competitive Alternatives, KPMG finds that since 2010, costs have risen more in Australia than in any other country. Most of that is due to the sharp rise of the currency against the US dollar, which has pushed up costs in every area.

Of the 113 cities surveyed, Sydney is the fifth most expensive place to do business, making it more expensive than New York. Among the 54 big cities in the survey, only Tokyo and Osaka put more strain on corporate profitability.

“It doesn’t take much to recreate risks of contagion,” Monti said yesterday at a conference in Cernobbio, Italy. Days after his Cabinet approved a bill to overhaul Italy’s labor laws, Monti praised Spain’s efforts to loosen work regulations while advising it to focus on cutting the national budget.

The euro crisis has eased after the European Central Bank last month boosted liquidity through three-year loans to banks, while European Union leaders this month sealed a second Greek bailout package. Still, signs of a deepening economic recession in the region and struggles to meet austerity goals have kept decision makers on alert, underscored by rising Spanish and Italian yields.

Spain’s 10-year yields climbed for a third week last week after Willem Buiter, Citigroup Inc. chief economist, said the nation faced an increasing risk of debt restructuring. Yields on the security climbed by 19 basis points last week to 5.39 percent, while similar-maturity Italian debt rose 20 basis points to 5.06 percent.

7. It's starting - NBR reports of two early 1900s style commercial buildings in central Auckland that failed to sell on Friday, potentially because of earthquake concerns.

Two well-tenanted character office buildings in Auckland’s cbd passed in at a Colliers auction on Friday. Auctioneer John Bowring started both properties at $3.5 million before passing them in.

Billy Boyd, a former owner of the buildings, says letters being sent out by the Auckland Council identifying earthquake-prone buildings are spooking investors.

The federal government has banned Chinese technology giant Huawei from participating in multibillion- dollar tenders to supply equipment to the national broadband network because of concerns over cyber attacks originating in China.

But Huawei is fighting the ban vigorously in public and by using diplomatic channels. It plans to announce its sponsorship of the Canberra Raiders rugby league football team in a bid to lift its profile in the national capital. Huawei sources have also hinted that the Chinese government will retaliate strongly against Australia if the ban on the company’s tenders is not lifted.

It appears that the Canadian authorities have finally caught-on to the huge risks facing Canadian taxpayers, with the CMHC agreeing to slow the growth of insurance-in-force (currently valued at around $540 billion CAD) and the Canadian Government signalling that it would not increase the $600 billion CAD cap on total outstanding CMHC insurance

10. Totally two big waves hitting Telefonica.

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BTW I found it very interesting that todays Dompost had 3 pages on the late eminent scientist Sir Paul Callaghan but NO reference at all to his 2001 book on Nuclear NZ which comprehensively demolishes all the tired old anti- nuclear myths held so dearly in this nation...

No official information.
The more I read about the case Fukushima and it’s consequences, the more questions arise: Two of the main questions: Why are Kiwis not warned by NZauthorities about the danger to travel to Japan and other nearby countries ? How safe is our food, especially seafood imported from that wider region ?

I think the situation is far worse then we think and Japan will slide into unprecedented trouble on many fronts in the near future.

More disturbing news.
Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ,BERNARD....NO DOUBT YOU'RE HANGING OUT AT SPQR ON PONSONBY RD SHOUTING YOUR MINIONS BOTTLES OF MOUTON ROTHSCHILD '48 AS YOU TOAST ANOTHER SHAREBROKER FOR MILD AMUSEMENT?
have a good day, Darth..

Happy Birthday Bernard.
Officially birthday’s for Kiwis should be a “Day off” – so unemployment people like Tony, Chris, Peter, John, Michael, Annette, Sue, Hugh, David.B, Gummy, Wolly etc. got a chance to work.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLUbhgySHs – you don’t’ have that problem Bernard – half of NZ knows you and most people in your office.

Hope you're enjoying a fun birthday luncheon Bernard!
1. The reason that wealth goes to the wealthy is that there is very little tax on unearned income, with most of the tax burden falling on wage earners, through income and consumption taxes.
Simply put, if you own assets in an inflationary environment (monetary expansion), then, on paper, your wealth will expand. If you are a wage earner with no assets, then you will be no better off.....in fact, your wages will be screwed down by the asset owners, so they can earn more profits!
What's the answer?
A simple way to even out the gains on this unearned income is to apply some form of comprehensive wealth tax (both Gareth Morgan and Lowell Manning have suggested this to fund a GMI). This would be a tax on all assets, not just a few chosen ones (by the lobbyists of the elites).
This is really the only fair and equitable approach to ensuring that all share in the (illusory) gains on the back of the expansion of the money supply.

The blocking of Huawei for bidding in the broadband roll out in Australia is racism , pure and simple , by the Gillard government . It's a joke to suggest that " cyber-hacking " is the reason . Huawei as a company has many years in the industry , they're not some Johnny-come-latelies jacked up by the state government .

It wouldn't be hard to add firmware functionality to network equipment to copy data to elsewhere than intended. I doubt that the Chinese government is that interested on what Australian tweens are twittering though, it seems a bit over the top. I'd be a bit nervous about installing Huawei gear in sensitive governmental or corporate environments though.

Low growth is having a social impact, the disgruntlement with the 0.01%'s is part of it, so are trade wars, currency debasement, critiscim of government spending etc. when you preach economics of growth, and rising incomes, you better have the goods to deliver it.